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12
The Arrest
Clover was being arrested by the Society Guard.
Kerrigan couldn’t fathom it. Clover, who was her closest friend outside the ranks of the establishment, who always saw Kerrigan exactly how she was, who had never seemed violent a day in her life. It was unfathomable.
“You can’t do anything,” Lyam said. “I know that look in your eye.”
“I can’t just let her go to jail,” she hissed low as the Guard continued toward their location.
The main holding facility for the city of Kinkadia was only a few blocks from here. That was likely where they were being taken. She could guess that they’d spend twenty-four hours there and then pay a fine. Clover didn’t have money. Everything she had belonged to Dozan. And Dozan didn’t bail out criminals. He was too motivated by greed for that.
If Clover went to jail and couldn’t pay her fine, they’d hold her in menial labor until she could. Who knew how long that would be? A week? Two weeks? A month?
Kerrigan couldn’t let it happen. It was dangerous and irresponsible and utterly foolish. She knew all of that, but still, she couldn’t stand by and do nothing.
The jail time might actually kill her, considering her reliance on loch. The withdrawal alone was one of the biggest killers in Kinkadia.
“Do you at least have a plan?” Lyam groaned.
“Don’t get caught?”
“That’s not a plan. That’s a…”
But Kerrigan never heard him finish. She dragged her magic up to the surface. Way more than she usually utilized at once. Definitely more than she ever showed in the Wastes. Fire was her primary element, but she didn’t want to hurt anyone. So, instead, she let loose her earth magic, a low rumble through the stones in front of the prisoners.
The guards halted in place in confusion. There were only three of them for the entire lot of insurrectionists. Since they were all chained together in magic-dampening manacles, it wasn’t likely that any of them could possibly get away. Not without help.
Kerrigan increased the intensity of the pressure on the stones around them. Then, she broadened the span of the shakes to encompass more and more of the surrounding area.
She heard the call go up in a tremulous shout, “Earthquake!”
The valley of Kinkadia was prone to them. And even though this was a fake one, no one could really tell the difference unless they had the ability to sense magic. Which was incredibly rare. She was lucky that none of those guards could do it. Though… guards weren’t typically chosen for their magical aptitude. They had the Society to do that.
So, as everyone feared her fake earthquake, she sent a spear of wind straight to the manacle holding Clover’s hands together before her. The manacles opened with a decidedly satisfying clink.
Clover’s head popped up in shock. She looked left and right, assessing the situation and trying to determine how this had happened. But she was too smart to wait and find out. She dropped the manacles like a ton of bricks and darted through the next alley. A shout went up by the Guard, but Kerrigan’s magic was still rumbling through the stones. She could feel her magic draining away. It was too much. Definitely too much for her, but her anger fueled its continuation until she was sure that Clover had escaped their clutches.
“Kerrigan, enough,” Lyam said, grasping her arm.
And slowly, she released her magic, until the stones were silent and she could only feel the rumbling in her mind.
“I cannot believe you did that,” Lyam said.
“You can do anything you put your mind to. Don’t you know?” she asked with a half-tilt to her lips. It was something Mistress Moran always parroted to them, even when it felt ludicrous.
“Kerrigan, I… I have to tell you something.”
She shivered in the summer evening. She had forgotten in her anger that she had been avoiding being alone with Lyam.
“What is it?” she asked warily.
“I know.”
“You… know?”
“About your visions,” he whispered.
Kerrigan pulled back, alarmed. That was not what she had thought he was going to say. “What? How?”
“I was there a year ago when you confessed your vision to Helly. She told you they were dangerous. That if anyone else knew, if it got out, you’d be killed.”
Kerrigan went pale. “You’ve known all this time?”
He nodded. “I wanted to tell you.”
“Then, why didn’t you?”
“She said if anyone else knew, you could get killed,” he repeated. “I wanted to protect you, Ker!”
“Protect me?” she whispered. “That’s why you’ve been following me all this time?”
He nodded. “Tried to at least. I was worried about you. Worried that a vision would take you, that you’d be alone and vulnerable.”
Kerrigan shuddered. That had happened. It had happened the first time, five years prior. Her sight blurred as she remembered it all. That empty alleyway, the Fae males who had come out of nowhere, the vision that had dropped her to her knees, the first assault that had made her ears ring, and then waking up in Dozan’s room in the Wastes. Her entire body a bruise. Cuts and scrapes littering her body. He’d applied rudimentary healing skills to it, but he was just a human. Not yet the king of the Wastes. Just a boy, not quite sixteen. Her savior. Such a ludicrous suggestion, knowing him now.
